Purpose Statement

Training and listening sessions without sustained action are performative at best and extractive at worst. Land acknowledgments without reparative plans tied to local Indigenous protocols are placeholders for sustained engagement and tangible shifts for those same local Indigenous and Black communities. Museum surveys, tokenized hires, white papers, artists' talks and even at times, exhibitions, acquisitions and other such symbolic gestures are additional placeholders for tangible and fundamental change. Structural change requires a long-term commitment to equitable, material, financial and concrete transformation.

Naming the problem is critical. Foregrounding this non-exhaustive list of grievances prioritizes the perspectives of individuals, staff members, activists, collectives and local communities who have been calling for foundational change since the inception of the museum. We gathered these accounts primarily through one-on-one conversations with staff members, artists, museum leadership, arts workers and members of museum communities; as well as through social media platforms and from our research into the multitude of objections found in the sector. This list provides context and demonstrates the profound need for new ideas and solutions.

The reason Readying The Museum places grievances so predominantly and at the top of this website is as a way to bracket them within the work institutions must do. These grievances are not new and they are in every institution and within every locale, they are in some ways the same typography of categories and are all derived from the same issues of whiteness, patriarchy, wealth and power. They do emerge differently in each institution and from each community. How institutions do the work of addressing these core systemic issues to get a better understanding of their accountability is how they will gain the strength to respond to and be accountable to the specific grievances found within their communities.